The bodily experience of disabled athletes. A phenomenological study of powerchair football

Abstract

Using Merleau-Ponty’s propositions concerning phenomenology this paper aims to understand the physical experience of athletes using powerchairs. Powerchair football is an adapted team sport specifically conceived to be practiced by people who use powerchairs. To conduct this study, we carried out in-depth interviews with eight French powerchair football players. The results of this study show that modifications of the powerchair allow mutual adjustments between the powerchair and the individual. These modifications are prior to the embodiment process of the powerchair which takes place during the practice of sport. Results also evidence that embodying the powerchair in a sporting context offers the opportunity to reconnect with intentionality and contributes to the development of an athletic identity.

Keywords:

• Phenomenology
• disability
• powerchair football
• embodiment
• sport

Notes

1. Along with Powerchair Hockey: http://powerchairhockey.org/

2. Fédération Internationale de Powerchair Football Association [International federation of powerchair football association]. Available at: http://fipfa.org.

3. ‘One can argue that all pain is subjectively and, therefore, culturally meaningful. There is no pain that is exclusively biological. Pain always has meaning, is always ‘socially informed’ and it informs the social. Thus, pain should not be regarded as physical sensation with additions of meaning, but as permeated with meaning, permeated with culture and as a state of embodiment which ‘produces culture’ (Paterson and Hughes 1999, p. 603).

4. There is no objective of sponsorship and athletes do not receive any corporate royalties.